Tabula Rasa
by hannah askance
Summary: "The world forgetting, by the world forgot." Ginny struggles to remember the important things in a world of darkness and uncertainty. D/G.


This story was written for **starlit skyes** in The DG Forum's 2013 Fic Exchange. A very big thank you to all who left me encouraging feedback while it was published on the forum account, many of which I wish I could have responded to.

_Special_ thank you to **Ha'niqua** for speeding through this for me! Her extremely valuable beta skills become more apparent every day.

If you visit FIA, you might have noticed that this has been cross-posted there - the version there has a second chapter up, as well as a third waiting for approval. In any case, let me know what you think!

(Chapter titles have been derived from Alexander Pope's poem _Eloisa and Abelard_.)

* * *

><p>"<em>Please state your name and occupation."<em>

"_Ginevra. Of QR Five –"_

"_No contractions, please."_

"– _Quarantine Centre Five. I am currently employed in the National Break-Rescue Squad as a field agent."_

* * *

><p><strong>I. These Deep Solitudes<strong>

* * *

><p>"Congratulations, Comrade Weasley," a cheery voice behind her said. "At least, I hear it's 'Weasley', isn't it?"<p>

Ginny swiveled around on her standard-issue office chair to meet her colleague's kind smile. "Thanks, Katie," she replied, returning the smile weakly. Although the number of people who had thought to give her their best wishes today was somewhat irritating, Katie was nice enough. Sometimes she wished her records would tell her more beyond the fact that they used to play in the same Quidditch team at school. "Who told you?"

The brunette's perpetually tired face seemed to take on a sheepish quality. "Word travels fast," said Katie, waving her hand dismissively. "And really, what's not to congratulate? _Finding your heart's true home_, and all that. That has to be a good thing."

The wistful tone creeping into her words made Ginny immediately feel bad; Katie had non-magical parents and no siblings, so there was little point for her to sign up with the Family Reconciliation Programme. The chaos from the ensuing Muggle-Wizard relations, during the beginning of the Lacuna six years ago, meant that any chances of reuniting non-magical families were slim - especially if it meant reaching out of the Domain, the safe haven the Compatriot Fitzroy had founded for the Wizarding community's protection. While Ginny of QR 5 was now Ginny Weasley, Katie would likely forever remain Katie of QR 3.

"Well," Ginny began awkwardly, "thanks. Sorry if that came out wrong. Just... nervous, you know. The meeting's later today." While silently cringing at her own blasé attitude, relief washed over her when Katie seemed to believe her small fib. Others probably _did_ get nervous. For some reason, she wasn't at all.

"You poor thing. Are you going straight after work?"

The office door opened, saving Ginny from having to answer, and in strode the office's third regular occupant, confident and beaming.

"I came as soon as I could!" exclaimed Susan Bones, immediately crossing over to Ginny's workstation and placing her hands on the desk. "Weasley, eh? Well done. When are you going to meet them?"

"After work," Ginny replied, and couldn't help grinning back. Even in the oppressive silence of QR 5, where they were two of the fifteen individuals who had woken up trapped, Susan's smile was an infectious – almost stubbornly so – thing.

"That's great," she enthused, while Katie shook her head good-naturedly at the interruption and returned to her desk. "Hey! Um, I'm going to the Fitzroy building later, so if you like I could accompany you to the Reconciliation Wing."

"Thanks, Sue, but they don't let –" Ginny started to say, but an entirely new, male voice cut in.

"Comrade Bones?" it asked, and both she and Susan turned to look. "I'm supposed to deliver this to you."

A tall male stood in the doorway, holding out several Registration Forms with an expectant look on his face. The first thing that struck Ginny was his hair – blonde, nearly white, tarnished only by what seemed to be dust. Her eyes followed the elegant line of his eyebrows, sloping towards his grey irises, which were examining Susan with a self-assured glint, until they shifted to meet her own gaze.

Her head – it was –

_uo yd evo lit ahtk nih totd na – emh ti wyats – y olf amda bosto neruoy_

_arv en –_

Ginny blinked, and instantly the white fire that was consuming her mind faded to nothingness.

"That's great, thank you," Susan was saying to the blonde man, who suddenly looked as unsettled as Ginny felt. His gaze suddenly sharpened towards her, and she would have called it a glare, had the heat in it cowed her instead of lighting a speck of warmth at the base of her spine, slowly seeping into the rest of her body.

She found she couldn't look away from his eyes.

"This means that, other than to find out your surname, we probably don't need to enrol you in the full FRP –"

His face suddenly turned away towards Susan, startled. "The full what?"

At the break of eye contact, Ginny felt as if she had just been deprived of something important, but tried to quell the strange feeling of disappointment rising in her chest.

"The Family Reconciliation Programme. As our diagnostics technicians may have already informed you, your immediate relatives were also in the group from the quarantine centre you were rescued from. That is incredibly fortunate, so congratulations –" Susan glanced down at the forms, and looked back up with a smile. "– Draco."

* * *

><p><em>12 October 2005<em>

_Dear Miss Ginevra M. Weasley,_

_It is our pleasure to advise you that your recent application has been successful, following official investigation by Department of Familial Reconciliation._

_Please find below the date and time of your Reconciliation Appointment, where you will be reunited with your family:_

The Fitzroy Building, Floor 5, Reconciliation Unit No. 3

_at_

15 October 2005, 6.30 PM

_We look forward to your attendance where you will meet the following family members:_

_Arthur Weasley [father], Molly Weasley [mother], William, Percival, George, Ronald [siblings] and any extended family that may accompany them._

_If you have any questions or concerns regarding your meeting, please contact your appointed Reconciliation Counselor._

_Kind regards,_

_Amanda Hawkes  
><em>_Head Co-ordinator  
>The Familial Reconciliation Division<em>

_**The Family Reconciliation Programme**__ – helping thousands of British wizards and witches unite their hearts_

* * *

><p>"Oh, Ginny," Susan murmured cautiously, shooting glances at Draco, "I am so, so sorry –"<p>

Although she felt a little annoyed, Susan had saved Ginny's own skin many times over, and she could be asking for much worse. "It's all right," she replied, nodding sympathetically for good measure. "It isn't as if you could've seen this coming."

"Thank you so much," she breathed to Ginny, and then turned to her blonde charge. "I am sorry for having to do this," she said apologetically, "but the current situation with your parents needs immediate attention. It will take at most two days – in the meantime, I'll be leaving you in Comrade Weasley's capable hands. If you need anything, I'm only an owl away."

He simply nodded, seeming indifferent. Susan threw out one last smile and Apparated, leaving the two of them alone. "Well," Ginny said, after a few seconds of pause. "Did Comrade Bones leave you with any specific instructions today?"

"She was meant to show me to my temporary accommodation." He shrugged. "She likely has the keys."

Ginny sighed, not so much annoyed with Susan for being irresponsible, but because Draco seemed so bloody apathetic about everything that she felt incredibly tempted to strangle him, just to see what he would say. '_Nice hands, Comrade_'? "I suppose you'll have to follow me, then," she said, ignoring the direction her thoughts were leading to, instead gesturing for him to follow as she strode down the corridor to the Familial Reconciliation Division. "I have personal business here today this afternoon, but –"

"Always some business or other, all of you," he remarked rudely, and Ginny gave him a sharp look, but caught herself before she opened her mouth to retaliate.

What was wrong with her? He was hardly the first abrasive rescuee she'd had the pleasure to escort, and not even the first she'd had to in place of Susan. And yet, her first instinct with this one was to lash back so quickly so as to leave him stranded in the wake of her words – or was it to drown him in them, a whirlpool of a dance that left him breathless, gasping –

A curious and, somehow, irritatingly patronising "Where are we going?" from Draco – who was now walking confidently in front of her, the git – snapped her out of... whatever it was.

"The Familial Reconciliation Division," Ginny replied curtly.

He slowed his pace, head turning back to look at her, incomprehension written on his face. "But Comrade Bones said my parents –"

"Not for you," she interrupted, resisting the urge to sigh, though whether it was at him or at herself, she was uncertain. "For me."

The expression of confusion morphed into a fleeting one of understanding, which rather eerily flattened into a near-empty gaze, much like ones favoured by stone statues. "'Personal business'."

"Yes," she agreed.

"You are... about to meet your family for the first time since...?" Draco vaguely pointed at his head, as though he wasn't sure what to call it.

"The Lacuna," she supplied. "From a Latin word meaning 'gap'. And yes, I am."

"Ah," he said, and continued walking, though he slowed down enough that they walked beside each other instead.

Before an awkward pause could ensue, an unwarranted question popped into her head, and before she knew it – "How does it feel, having parents?"

Draco looked surprised. "What d'you –"

"Knowing you have family. Seeing your family." Ginny took a deep breath. It was insane, practically spilling the thoughts – things she wouldn't even tell Susan – to a stranger she didn't even like, and a current ward she was assisting, too. "You know. Realising that there are people out there who have the same blood as you, that there were two humans who decided they'd have –"

"All right already, I get it," he cut her off, another scathing remark already prepared, by the looks of it, and Ginny could take no more.

"Okay," she burst, having had enough of his nonsense. "I don't know what you were like in your previous life, or _what_ the hell you could have encountered in a quarantine centre to be so – to have this ridiculous attitude, but if I don't get polite courtesy from now on, I will dump your ungrateful arse back at headquarters and leave you to figure things out on your own."

His smirk died on his lips, his steps coming to a halt. "And you _are_ an ungrateful arse," she continued, her emotions riled up. "You don't get it, do you? Susan _saved_ you from that quarantine centre. She disarmed spells, old enough to be incredibly volatile, and dangerous enough that as much as a brush could decapitate – she got you out of that hole isolated from the rest of the world, where the supplies are so limited that in another week you and the fourteen others in there probably would have _starved_. So." She inhaled and threw him one last glare. "Shut it."

Draco's mouth opened and closed ungracefully several times, but the feeling of triumph warming Ginny's chest was cut short when he suddenly said, "My parents were war criminals."

She blinked. "Excuse me?"

"That's why Comrade Bones had to leave, wasn't it?" He flicked a piece of lint off his shoulder. "To sort out my parents' situation, she said. Before this... the Lacuna, they were both under strict surveillance by the former state for, I don't know, war crimes, or something."

"I... How do you know all of this?" she asked, stunned. He was not supposed to know this kind of information – it was generally kept restricted from anyone but the Break-Rescue team responsible for the particular rescue.

He shrugged in response. "I'm observant. Your colleagues should make sure other people are completely out of earshot before... Well." Frowning, he looked aside. "It doesn't matter, anyway. They're complete strangers to me."

Unnervingly, an echo of her own thoughts about meeting her family that morning. _It doesn't affect me at all._

They walked in silence, as though they had somehow agreed not to discuss the delicate subject, their footsteps' echoes lost amidst the murmur of activity of the crowd around them. The walls of the Fitzroy building were a flawless white, the marble floors gleaming with a certain professional severity. It was fitting that most of its thousand-odd occupants always moved to their next destination with purpose; a well-oiled, tightly constructed machine of leather shoes and spotless robes.

She looked over her shoulder at Draco. She realised she had gotten used to this, but she wondered what it would look like to a newcomer's eyes. It seemed strange that it never occurred to her before that it might not have always been this way, all quick walks and brisk dialogue, only the strictly necessary allowed.

The young man himself was quiet, his eyes roving over his surroundings as they entered the main lobby of the Familial Reconciliation Division. It wasn't her first time entering the enormous room, but its remarkable contrast was still not lost on her. The difference between it and the rest of the Fitzroy was striking: while most of the building was flat and monochromatic, the Division's reception area was comprised of a single, circular wall, painted a warm, welcoming coral, trimmed with white; dark red tiles made up the floor; numbered white doors lined the wall, at least one always open to let newly reunited families out in varying states of emotion. Ginny thought it was interesting, if a little saddening, that while the occupants of a single Reconciliation Unit might emerge tearful with happiness, the one next door might produce a group of people similar in appearance, but stepping around each other with insincere laughs and stilted embraces, or even outright stares of dislike.

The witch at the reception counter smiled. "How may I help you today, Comrade?" she asked, adding the title at the sight of Ginny's Break-Rescuer robes.

"Um." Ginny glanced sideways at Draco, wondering what to do with him. "My name's Ginny. I have a Reconciliation scheduled for Weasley, 6.30PM."

"My apologies, Comrade, but no escorts," the woman said, her eyes taking on a mean look that said she thought Ginny was a new agent. "Family accompaniment only."

Ginny flushed in irritation. "I know the rules, thank you," she snapped, her pride getting the better of her, and shoved her letter across the counter. "It's for me."

The woman harrumphed, but quickly read the letter and returned it to Ginny. She gestured vaguely to her right. "Reconciliation Unit 3. Any accompanying family today?" she added, looking expectantly at the unimpressed blonde beside her. To his credit, Draco turned his nose up slightly at her.

Doing a quick calculation – Susan wasn't likely to return within the next few hours – Ginny replied shortly, "My husband."

Draco shot her a quick look of surprise, before catching on and replacing it with his usual indifference. She felt oddly disappointed.

The receptionist nodded. "Please wait beside your door," she droned, as if reciting it from a script for the thousandth time. "Chairs have been provided, and we have tea and coffee available should you want any. Your counselor will be with you shortly." Here she paused, smiling almost manically. "Thank you for entrusting your future with the Family Reconciliation Programme."

"Thank you," Ginny muttered, and headed for the door marked '_3_.' "This way, Draco."

"'Husband'?" he asked her once they were out of earshot, an eyebrow raised expectantly.

"Would you rather I leave you to be escorted out by the guards?" she snapped at him, not understanding why that raised eyebrow made her want to slap him upside the head.

He snorted, but did not reply to that. Instead – "Ginevra," he muttered, his eyebrows knotted.

It was as if someone had struck her with lightning. She felt her muscles seize at once, hot and cold shivers rippling down her spine, but her head turned sharply to his direction.

"Ginevra," he repeated. "That's what your letter said your name was. Why does it –" He looked up to meet her eyes.

Grey, the colour of unforgiving rock at the fringe of the sea, weathering the water's waves of little salty tempers, scraped down, ever so slowly.

Her head –

_gni ht tse beht_

What –

_em otd e nepp ahr eve taht_

Again –

_ro odt aht tuok lawe radu oyt nod_

"Comrade Weasley," greeted a kind voice. Ginny tore her eyes away from Draco and found herself facing a brunette woman with a friendly face.

"Yes?" she answered, feeling slightly unhinged from the episode of – whatever it was.

"I'm your Reconciliation Counselor," the woman said, extending her hand. "Mary MacDonald."

Ginny accepted the handshake. "Pleased to meet you, Comrade MacDonald." She avoided looking at Draco while he and the counselor exchanged pleasantries, although she had the feeling that he was trying to catch her eye.

"If you and your husband will step this way, please," MacDonald chirped. "Your family is waiting for you, Comrade Weasley."

* * *

><p><strong>Starlit's Prompt:<strong>

Basic premise: Think "Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind" the movie, or the quote "Blessed are the forgetful: for they get the better even of their blunders". The world is under a curse, and is beginning to forget. All relationships are lost and all people are blind in trying to remember each other. Draco and Ginny have been in a relationship for many years, until a brutal breakup - and now they don't remember each other.

Must haves: UST, angst, the concept of "muscle memory" when it comes to emotions, strong visuals.

No-no's: marriage, children, dead!Harry

Rating range: Any, although M would be lovely. :P

Bonus points: Smut, a nice dystopian feel to the whole thing, Lucius in a yummy manner.


End file.
